“Yes, and the wenches are all so thin they are liked plucked fowls and there is no pleasure in them at all!”
Then suddenly Wang the Tiger could not bear his life and he went away into a room by himself and he sat and groaned for a while before he could harden himself again. But he did harden himself once more. He thought of the fair lands and he thought how he had enlarged his power and how he had in this war more than doubled the country over which he ruled, and he told himself that it was his trade and his means of greatness and last and best he thought of the two women he had and how from one of them surely his son would be born, and he cried to his own heart,
“Cannot I for that one bear that others should somewhat suffer for three little days?”
Thus he hardened himself for the three days and he held himself to his promised word.
But on the dawn of the fourth day he rose up early from his restless bed and he ordered signals given and horns blown everywhere and it was a sign to all his soldiers that their looting was over and they must come back to his commands. And because he rose up that morning more than usually fierce and black in his looks and his black brows darted up and down over his eyes, none dared to disobey him.
No, none except one. As Wang the Tiger strode out of the gate that had been fast locked these three days he heard a feeble crying in an alley near by, and being made oversensitive to these cries now, he turned his long steps there to see what it was. In that alley he saw a soldier of his on his way back to the ranks, but he had seen an old woman pass and on her finger was a thin, gold ring, a poor, small, worthless thing, too, for the old woman was only some working wife, and she could not have any great good thing. But the soldier had been overcome with a sudden desire for the last bit of gold and he wrenched at the old woman’s hand and she cried out at him, wailing,
“It has been on my finger nigh upon thirty years and how can I loose it now?”
And the soldier was in such haste, for the bugle was blowing, that there before his own eyes Wang the Tiger saw the man whip out his knife and cut off the old woman’s finger clean, and her poor scanty blood had still strength enough to spurt out in a feeble stream. Then Wang the Tiger gave a great roaring curse, for the soldier had not seen him he was in such haste, and Wang the Tiger sprang at the soldier and he drew out his keen blade as he sprang and drove it straight through the man’s body. Yes, although it was his own man Wang the Tiger did it, because his anger came up in him so to see this wretched, starved creature dealt with as she had been before his very eyes. The soldier fell without a sigh and his own blood gushed out in a hearty, red stream. As for the old woman she was terrified at such fierceness, even if it was to succor her, and she wrapped her smarting stump in her old apron and ran and hid herself somewhere and Wang the Tiger did not see her again.
He wiped his sword on the soldier’s coat, then, and he turned away lest he repent what he had done, and it was useless to repent, since the man was dead. He stayed only to command one of his guards to take the dead man’s gun.
Then Wang the Tiger went through that city and he was astonished beyond any measure to see the few wretched people there were and how they came crawling out into their doorways and sat listless on the benches upon their thresholds, too weak to lift their heads even to look at Wang the Tiger as he came striding along in the bright sunshine of autumn, and his guards glittering and clattering behind him. No, they sat there as though they were dead, so dull and still they were, and some strange shame and astonishment was in Wang the Tiger’s heart so that he did not stay to talk with any man. He held his head very high and he pretended he did not see the people and only the shops. There were many goods in these shops such as he had not seen before, since this city was on the river to the south, and the river ran to the sea, and such goods could be brought in. Yes, Wang the Tiger saw many curious foreign things he had not seen before, but they were carelessly placed now and covered with dust as though no one had come to buy for a long time.
But two things he did not see in this city. He saw no food anywhere for sale, and the market place was empty and silent and there were no vendors or hucksters in the streets such as make busy any town and city, and he saw no little children. At first he did not notice how quiet the streets were and then he noticed and wondered for the reason of the quietness and then it came to him that he missed the noisy voices and laughter of the children with which every house is filled in usual times, and he missed their darting and running upon the streets. And suddenly he could not bear to look at the thin dark dull faces of the men and women who were left. He had done no more than any lord of war may do, and it could not be counted to him for a crime, since there was no other way in which he could rise.
But Wang the Tiger was truly too merciful a man for his trade and he turned and went back to his courts because he could not bear to see this city now his, and he was cast down and ill humored and he swore at his soldiers and he roared at them to be out of his way, for he could not endure at all the sound of their loud, satisfied laughter and the sight of their satiate glittering eyes, and he looked with rage upon the gold rings they had on their fingers and the foreign watches they had hung on them and many such things they had taken. Yes, he even saw gold rings on the fingers of his two trusty men, upon the Hawk’s hard hand a ring of gold, and a jade ring upon the thumb of the Pig Butcher, that was so large and coarse a thumb the ring stuck half way upon the joint and would go no further. But still he wore it so. Seeing all this Wang the Tiger felt very far and separate from all these men and muttered to himself that they were low and beast-like fellows and he was lonely to the depths of his being and he went and sat alone in his room in mighty ill humor and bellowed for the smallest cause if anyone came near him.
But when he had sat thus a day or two and his soldiers, seeing how angry he was, were frightened and calmed themselves somewhat, Wang the Tiger hardened himself once more and he told himself that such were the ways of war and he had chosen this way of life and heaven had destined him as he was, and he must finish what he had begun. So he rose and washed himself, for he had sat these three days unwashed and unshaven, he was so angry, and he clothed himself freshly, and he sent a messenger to the magistrate of the city that he must come and submit himself. Then Wang the Tiger went into the guest hall of this palace and sat down there and waited for the man to come.
In an hour or two the magistrate came with what haste he could muster and he came in leaning on two men, a very ghastly, pale figure of a man he looked. But he bowed to Wang the Tiger and waited and Wang the Tiger saw this man was well born and a scholar by his gentle looks. He rose therefore and bowed in return and he motioned that the magistrate was to be seated. Then Wang the Tiger was seated too and he could but sit and stare at this other, for the magistrate’s face and his hands were the strangest and most dreadful color, and it was the hue of a liver that has been dried for a day or two, and he was so thin one would have said his skin was glued to his bones.
Then Wang the Tiger cried out suddenly in the midst of his wonderment, “What — did you starve too?”
And the man answered simply, “Yes, since my people did also, and it is not the first time.”
“But the man they sent out to make truce the first time was fed well enough,” said Wang the Tiger.
“Yes, but they fed him specially from the first,” answered the magistrate, “so that if you would not make truce you would see they had stores left to eat and could hold out longer.”
Then Wang the Tiger could not but approve such good guile as this and he cried out in wonder and admiration of it, and he said,